Times Square may be nowhere near the financial district of New York City, but make no mistake: Broadway is bank.

The Broadway season that ended May 31 grossed $1.1 billion at the box office, aided by new blockbusters like "The Book of Mormon" and "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark," as well as celebrity vehicles for the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller and a host of TV stars. But the backbone of the bankroll remains perennial favorites such as "Wicked," "Chicago" and "The Lion King."

Broadway remains one of Americans' favorite destinations: Tourists purchase about 63 percent of the nearly 12 million tickets sold every year.

They're calling this "the season of substance," with the emergence of several intellectually charged new plays. But, as always, the Great White Way offers everything from war horses to "War Horse," a thrilling import from Britain featuring life-size equine puppets.

Come to Broadway this summer and you'll find cutting-edge satire like "Mormon" (the undisputed champion of the 2010-11 season); revivals of classics like "Anything Goes" and "How to Succeed"; and omnipresent adapted films like "Catch Me If You Can" and "Sister Act." But if you want a full New York theater experience, you must catch a cab and take in an off-Broadway offering.

Below, you can check out our thoughts on as many plays and musicals we could cram into five days with Broadway's billion-dollar baby.

JOHN MOORE'S CAPSULE REVIEWS OF SEVEN BROADWAY SHOWS

"The Book of Mormon"

Yes, the cheerful new Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" is that funny. And outrageous. And profane. It is also a razor-sharp satire. But mostly it is a heartfelt testament to anyone who has undergone a crisis in faith, and come out stronger for it.

It opens with a clean-cut, all-American missionary-in-training named Kevin, who is determined to go out into the world "and blow God's freaking mind!" But his destination is not Orlando, as he prayed - it's drought- and disease-ravaged Africa.

And here's the heart of the story: Mission success is measured in converts, but, as the play positions it, the real Book of Mormon could put a crack baby to sleep, so Arnold embellishes its teachings with lessons from "The Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars." And in doing so, he captures the imaginations of the natives.

Yes, lying is wrong, but people have been bending sacred scriptures to suit their own purposes for centuries. And if that actually brings needed urgency and relevance to people's lives, then what's the harm?

While writers Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez break all the rules - their love for the rules of musical theater is evident in every joyous, witty note. This is a love letter to theater, with evident affection for everything from "Bye Bye Birdie" to "Godspell" to "The King & I" to "Little Shop of Horrors" to "Beauty and the Beast."

Shocking? You bet. But the ultimate message is a wholesome one: Even if we question or doubt our beliefs, we can still work together to make things better.

I'm not sure how the savagely funny lines will hold up over time and repeated listens, but there's no question "The Book of Mormon's" place in history is set in stone tablets.

Tony nominations: 14

Quotable: "Jesus hates you, this we know, for Jesus just told you so" (from the song "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream").

"Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark"

After taking three weeks off for emergency repairs, the most expensive — and ridiculed — musical in history isn't exactly fixed. But it's no longer in the fix it had been in. Last week, "Spider-Man" grossed $1.3 million at the box office — more than critical darling "The Book of Mormon" (which is playing in a smaller theater)— and it doesn't even officially open until Tuesday. "Spider-Man" is still inarguably flawed, but no matter what critics say — and The New York Times said it might be the worst musical in history — this is not the national joke it once was.

I saw the May 25 preview performance — with understudies playing both Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (the top-liners were pimping the show on "American Idol"). It was a mess at first, right up until Peter dons his red-and-blue tights and starts flying around the Foxwood Theatre. But from there, this musical delivers the carnival ride the squealing, chair-climbing kids in the audience are clamoring for: high-flying aerials, Julie Taymor's spinning, fold-out goth scenery and, for the most part, the familiar story line of the first movie, with a few comic-book villains morphed into the Green Goblin.

The biggest mistake the creators of this $65 million-plus monster made was ever believing "Spider-Man" needed to have artistry — or a big-name rock band — to be commercially successful. Shocking as this may sound, the musical's greatest remaining weaknesses are easily traced to its marquee creative players: Taymor and U2's Bono and The Edge.

The musical is nearly dead on arrival when the U2 boys subject us to an early, paint-by-numbers schoolyard song called "Bullying by Numbers," which wouldn't cut muster in "High School Musical X." And Taymor's big, high-minded conceit — insinuating the mythological spider Arachne as a kind of moral guide for Peter — is both breathtaking . . . and utterly superfluous.

This popcorn-munching audience doesn't want pretty. They want to see Peter fly, vanquish the Green Goblin and have an upside-down kiss with Mary Jane — a drippy character so spineless here that fans of Kirsten Dunst may want to picket. Fix all that, and ditch the rest — and they will sell tickets for years.

The wildly erratic score is personality-challenged, but not all bad. In a fun twist, every song seems to borrow its opening riff from a U2 classic (hey, that's "Where the Streets Have No Name!" ... and that's "Walk On"!). But while the Peter and Mary Jane ballads are dreary ("If the World Should End" is downright awful), Peter's full-lunged "Boy Falls From the Sky" solo holds its own.

It's a Catch-22: When U2 is being U2 and the musical rocks out, it's at its most alive. Then again, when it rocks out — you can't understand a word.

Sure, "Spider-Man" is all trickery over substance — but so was "Mary Poppins." The bottom line: "Spider-Man," like its anti-hero, is a musical caught between two worlds. And yet it has an energy that's unmatched on Broadway. And the crowd ate it up.

Tony nominations: Not yet eligible (officially opens Tuesday)

Quotable: "All the weirdos in the world are here in New York City tonight."

Photo: By Jacob Cohl.

"War Horse"

The most captivating offering of the Broadway season is this harrowing but magically expressed tale of a boy and his horse. Masterfully presented by the National Theatre of Great Britain, "War Horse" is a multimedia marvel that stars a life-size equine made of sticks and leather who delivers one of the most stirring survival stories ever told on a stage.

His name is Joey, and he's manipulated by three puppeteers — one a visible handler controlling his head and making all the horse sounds; the two others inside.

"War Horse," based on a children's book that Steven Spielberg is making into a film, opens wistfully in rural England 1912. Joey is a lost, skittish colt who is taken in by a teenager named Albert who endures all manner of obstacles to keep and raise him, only to lose him to an army officer who enlists him as his "War Horse," with a course set for France.

That's a term we've all used without much consideration of its origin. Horses have been employed in combat for centuries, of course — and subject to the same danger, exhaustion, starvation and misery as trench soldiers. Joey is trapped in the no-man's land of the Western Front at the very time in history when armies finally figured out how effectively to combat them: with barbed wire, machine guns and tanks.

But Albert embarks on a stirring odyssey to somehow reunite with him.

This stunning anti-war parable combines cutting-edge animation, jaw-dropping lighting and innovations in puppetry (developed by Handspring Puppet Company of Cape Town) that will redefine live storytelling in much the same way Julie Taymor did with "The Lion King." But it's also a throwback to simple storytelling at its most thrilling.

Tony nominations: 5

Quotable: "Damn this bloody war."

Photo: By Paul Kolnik.

"The Normal Heart"

Larry Kramer's 1985, fact-based AIDS polemic may be the angriest play since "Medea." Actor Joe Mantello paces throughout like a rabid dog, his right hand almost always glued inside his jacket pocket as if concealing a gun he's about to unload on everyone in attendance. But the words he spits out do the job quite nicely on their own.

Kramer exonerates no one from allowing the worst plague in 80 years to go all but unchallenged between 1981-84. Not Ronald Reagan, The New York Times or the medical community. And not the largely oblivious or closeted gay community that he portrays as ignoring the crisis for self-serving purposes. All of which (and more) let the virus gestate into a killer of 35 million and counting.

Mantello plays Kramer's alter ego — an accidental AIDS activist at the start of the political movement that turned frightened and helpless gay New Yorkers into a bellicose army — only with no one listening to their battle cries while friends dropped around them, first in a trickle and eventually by the dozens.

Crisply directed by Joel Grey, this is visceral, raw and heartbreaking theater that feels nothing like a 26-year-old diatribe that's only now making it to a Broadway stage. It's laced with sweetness and elegant, furious castigations — one by Broadway newcomer Ellen Barkin (ironically, as a polio-crippled doctor) that brings the play to a halt and the audience to its feet.

The words may be time-stamped, but there's nothing dated about theater that feels this cathartic and alive. And with Kramer himself there most nights handing out fliers with current stats, it's plain the fight against AIDS is far from over.

Tony nominations: 4

Quotable: "Maybe if they let us get married in the first place, none of this would have happened." (1985)

"Catch Me If You Can"

The stylish and surprisingly fun transformation of the 2002 film to the stage takes the attitude that the attention-starved con man Frank Abagnale Jr. was just a guy putting on a show his whole adult life — so why not present his story on Broadway the same way?

Opening with the airport arrest that ended years of audacious moneymaking schemes, Frank takes a cue from Nicely-Nicely Johnson of "Guys and Dolls" by offering up his life story like a defendant to a jury that's won over from the start.

"You're not putting a show on for these people!" protests hard-boiled agent Hanratty (the Tom Hanks role) — but that's just what he does. It's all accompanied by a "glamazon" of statuesque dancers and the tuxedoed, 19-piece Frank Abagnale Jr. Players Orchestra.

Set against cool '60s fashion and mores, the musical takes only a surface stab at exploring the pathological reasons Frank assumed identities as varied as a teacher, doctor, lawyer, pilot and Secret Service agent. The heart instead is the real friendship that develops between cat and mouse — Frank is a perpetual kid; the agent chasing him never got to be a father. Both are lonely.

But mostly "Catch Me If You Can" is an old-fashioned variety show, performed to a swinging score that evokes everything from Dusty Springfield to Aretha Franklin. A major weakness is Frank's paper-thin romance with nurse Brenda — the role Denver's Amy Adams originated on film. It's played here by big-shot Kerry Butler, whose only reason for taking the job must be the knockout number, "Fly Away."

Former Denver stage favorite Rachel de Benedet plays Frank's red-hot mama, an elegant French woman who, shall we say, had more than one dance partner. She's a babe who Agent Hanratty says "gives new meaning to 'fem fatal!' "

Tony nominations: 4

Quotable: "One day you will look at yourself, and you won't be who you were."

You'll recognize: Tom Wopat as Frank's boozer dad

Photos: Top by Joan Marcus; Rachel de Benedet by John Moore

"Jerusalem"

Every once in a while, you're told a performance is "once-in-a-lifetime" — and that's just what Mark Rylance delivers in this dense and bewildering trailer-park epic set in the present-day forest of southwest England. Johnny "Rooster" Byron is a wild, drug-dealing old daredevil (described as a modern-day Pied Piper — but think Peter Pan at 60). True to his nickname, Rooster struts and crows about like a drunken, cocksure fowl, as he has for decades, humoring the motley crew of young ruffians who use him for his drugs and booze and endless partying.

Now this blustering old braggart is refusing to abide by an eviction notice, and is instead digging in for his last stand.

This trailer-trash standoff is in fact a sprawling, intellectual story rooted in everything from Shakespeare (with Rooster both as king and fool in one), to Druidic mythology to British history. The title refers to an 1804 poem by William Blake, a rebel like Rooster who imagined that Jesus, in the missing years, traveled the English countryside to establish a new Jerusalem, a place of universal love and peace.

There's none of that to be found here in Rooster's Wood. Instead a 15-year-old girl named Phaedra, last seen with Rooster, has gone missing.

The play sails largely over the heads of American audiences but, like a child watching Shakespeare, anyone can absorb this explosive portrait of pride and self-destruction that ends with a man bathed in hard-earned blood, sweat, burns and booze. A one-of-a-kind performance.

You'll recognize: John Gallagher Jr. from the original cast of "Spring Awakening"; Mackenzie Crook from "The Office" (British version).

Photo: Mark Rylance, by Simon Annand.

"The Mother(expletive) With the Hat"

The most provocatively titled play of the Broadway season is also its funniest. At least to start.

Stephen Adly Guirgis' blistering opening scene shows randy, blue-collar ex-con Jackie (Bobby Cannavale of "Will & Grace") warming up his tough-talking chica for a midday romp to celebrate his new job with FedEx. But in short order, hard-luck Jackie will lose his job, his girl, his sobriety, his apartment and his best friend.

Named for a misplaced piece of haberdashery that turns lust into violent jealousy at the flip of a, well, hat, this savage treatise on fidelity and our basic human instinct to mess everything up that's good would be demoralizing to watch were it not also so laugh-out-loud funny. But eventually it loses its novelty and verbal sizzle before settling into a fairly ordinary tale of betrayal.

This blue and blue-collar comedy no doubt secured a high-profile Broadway stage on the presence and marketing power of Chris Rock (through July 17). He gives a worthy effort playing best friend Ralph D., whose world view precludes him from making apologies for any of his own bad behavior. But Rock is no trained actor. He delivers every line with the same pitch and volume of a stand-up comic shouting at a mic. The brilliant Cannavale, on the other hand, makes for a volatile shlub who's part Tony Soprano, part Charlie Brown.

If you don't care what show you see and/or you're on a budget, then standing in line at the TKTS booth at Duffy Square in Times Square (47th Street at Broadway; 212-221-0013) is the way to go. The sign displays what's available that day. Note that the booth now takes cash, traveler's checks and credit cards. The line can take an hour or more (especially in good weather, during the holidays and for popular shows or show openings).

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